Tomb Raider: Chronicles, The Absurd Truth
by hypersterile boject
Summary: The plot of TR: Chronicles written the way it really happened. Waha.
1. Candy Canes and Doppelganger Bones

TOMB RAIDER: CHRONICLES - The Absurd Truth  
  
storyline discovered by Triangular Circle  
  
Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. NONE of it. Not even the storyline! Because it's real. Waha.  
  
chapter one - candy canes and doppelganger bones  
  
Rain poured down from an old, rickety sky. Jeevo, a butler, was leaving a candy cane at the statue of his late mistress, Lara Croft. Lightning illuminated the dark grey clouds (well, at least Jeevo thought it was lighting. In reality it was a disaster at the nearby nuclear powerplant). After a quick rememberance of Ms. Croft, the heartweary old doozer rabidly chased a nearby couple away from the statue. He was very posessive, you see. He did not let anyone get near Lara. Even if she was not really Lara.  
  
There was quite an interesting story behind the statue. A very long time ago, Lara had journeyed to a remote temple, whereupon she had singlehandedly found the statue of Midas. The legendary hand of Midas, which had crumbled to the floor and was said to turn anything that touched it into bronze, was required for her to unlock a special door which would eventually lead her to another artifact, called the Scion. Lara had no problems with the stone hand, utilizing it to turn three lead bars into bronze.  
  
However, a feind by the name of Pierre had constructed a lifesize model of Lara and had lowered it onto the hand of Midas. After phoning Jeevo and speaking of how poor Lara had supposedly fallen onto the hand of Midas and was now a bronze statue, he ran off snickering to who-knows-where.  
  
Poor traumatized Jeevo had immediately rushed himself and Father Patrick (whom Lara had known from her childhood) off to the hand of Midas, where the two found "Lara", turned to solid metal. They had then shipped the statue to a graveyard in Surrey near the Croft Estate. That statue stood before Jeevo at this very moment. He thought his beloved Lara was dead, and had left some candy canes for her spirit. Right.  
  
"Get in the car, y'ol windbag!"  
  
Jeevo turned around to see Father Patrick hanging out of his limo's window, holding a humanlike legbone as if it were a lethal weapon. "Right now," Patrick called again dangerously. He scratched a gnat off of his head. Sullenly Jeevo obeyed, entering the limo and sitting down next to the young preist.  
  
"She's gone, yanno," Patrick slurred out in a western accent. "An' she ain't comin' back. Once someone's intestines get turned to metal, they're a goner for sure."  
  
"Father Patrick," Jeevo began to ask in his deep, hoarse voice. "I am simply remembering and honoring Ms. Croft's soul. Is there anything you find wrong with that?"  
  
"Wrong?!" Patrick cackled, "Yeah I find somethin' wrong with that! The very fact that we humans ain't got no 'souls'! All we do is lay in the ground and rot, once we kick the bucket."  
  
Jeevo stared at him, wondering what an unreligious man such as Father Patrick had to go about in the quest to become a preist. Patrick had explained it all to him before, but poor senile Jeevo had no memory of the past. Except for Lara Croft, of course.  
  
On the drive to the Croft Estate, Patrick began to babble about how mislead Werner Von Croy was.  
  
"That ol' goat thinks Lara's under the Great Pyramid!" he chortled. "Who could ever a' thought o' that one 'sides Von Croy, eh Jeevo? Wouldn't be s'prised if he ended up gettin' stuck down there himself. Never did have much of a brain." He took a bite out of the legbone he was still holding, when Jeevo noticed where it was from.  
  
"Isn't that the femur of the prize doppelganger I brought home from Atlantis?" he asked feebly. Patrick laughed uproariously, then became quiet and said, "Yes. Yes it is." Jeevo noted the dangerous quality in his voice and became silent. The remainder of the car ride passed without much interference, if you don't count the wrecked towtruck they passed in the one-lane street. 


	2. Streets of Home

TOMB RAIDER: CHRONICLES - The Absurd Truth  
  
storyline discovered by Triangular Circle  
  
Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. It's all true. Honest! ::crosses fingers::  
  
chapter two - streets of home  
  
When they reached the mansion of Croft Estate, Jeevo and Father Patrick met an unidentifiable bald man doing yoga in front of the main hall's bookcase. He was blue-eyed with a bit of stubble on his chin and upper lip. His clothes were of norm and he slightly bulged at the waist.  
  
"Err... who are you?" Jeevo asked, but the man only shushed him and continued with his yogic stuff.  
  
"Don't mind Baldy," Patrick whispered, coming to stand next to the butler. "I let him in the back door earlier. He wouldn't stop scratching to get in. Quite the peculiar creature, he is. Walks around on all fours and wails like a dying grouse."  
  
Jeevo suddenly realized that Patrick's accent was Irish. "Father Patrick!" he cried, "What happened to that odd western accent you so very recently adopted?"  
  
"I lost it in the car," Patrick said with a shrug. "A slippery little beast, it is. Crawled right from the tip of me larnyx. Now, let's go into the study and reminisce a bit over Ms. Croft's gruesome, mutilating death." He began to pull Jeevo into the study, which had replaced the kitchen.  
  
"But we've already done so on several previous--" Jeevo began, but Baldy threw a sock at him and it landed conveniently in his mouth.  
  
In the study, the two males sat at a spotless table and began to talk about Lara Croft's past adventures. The first of these adventures which they began to relive inside their brains was her quest to acquire the Piestuffer's Stone (don't ask how they managed this even when they had not been there to witness the adventure, for I have no clue).  
  
The Piestuffer's Stone had been named for its creator, a young Roman boy who had stuffed a pie into the microwave and had forgotten about it for several years. The microwave ran for all several of these years, and when the pie came out it was hard as stone. There was nothing very important or intriguing about this stony pie, except that it was very burnt. So why anyone would risk rusty spikes and magical statuesque gladiators to find this pie is a baffling mystery indeed.  
  
For whatever reason, perhaps a very rash appetite, Lara Croft had decided to go in search of the Piestuffer's Stone, and that is where the good part of this story begins. . .  
  
***  
  
"I like rocks that look like money," came Larson's very western voice from behind her as she watched the opera being performed below (the opera was called 'Listen to my Hideous Voice'). "But I like money more. Hand it over, stonethief."  
  
Lara Croft turned around and smiled sarcastically. "I'm not a thief. Pierre's the one who lured me here for that piece of cra--"  
  
"That ain't a nice thing for a polite gun-toting murderer like you to be sayin', now ain't it Miss Lara?" Larson said lazily. "Anyway, yeah. The cash? I got the Moolah Stone." He pulled a rock that resembled a dollar bill from his tuxedo shirtpocket.  
  
"You're a gorilla," Lara said bluntly. "Where's Pierre?"  
  
"I thought I killed him a while ago...?" Larson pondered aloud, holding his chin between his thumb and index finger.  
  
"I'm right here, you baboon," Pierre said, slipping out of the shadows and pointing a revolver at Lara's head. "The resin statue of Ms. Croft is the one who got turned to bronze, not me."  
  
"Oh, I 'member now!" Larson said, becoming very hyper and bouncing up and down in his seat. Pierre slapped him with an animal food-bowl and took the money from Lara. The money was in a floral basket.  
  
"What the...?"  
  
"I thought maybe you'd like flowers, too," Lara said, shining a clean smile. "They're daffodils. I picked them myself."  
  
Pierre's eyes shone with unspilled tears and a wide smile spread across his face as he observed the hundred-dollar-bills that had been folded into origami rabbits and ducks. "How thoughtful."  
  
Suddenly Lara grabbed the Moolah Stone from Larson and made a break for it, snickering. She hopped onto the balcony railing, which gave way under her and sent her plummeting. She managed to grab onto the stage curtain, but it ripped and tore, sending her (as well as one thousand pounds of red velvet fabric) falling into the crowd that had gathered for the opera.  
  
"NO!" shouted Pierre. "It was supposed to be a backstabbing trick!"  
  
Larson was giggling with joy and singing a virulent song.  
  
Lara managed to pull herself free from the pile of hostile fabric, and fled the area after stealing Haruko's yellow vespid. Pierre and Larson had jumped onto the scooter from Dumb and Dumber, and were in hot pursuit.  
  
The chase momentarily halted when Lara crashed into an old man's fencepost and ran along the sidewalk by foot. She made her way to an area with a fountain, and nearly lost an arm to a rabid girl (the doberman just watched and yawned). Longing to take a breather, she trekked through courtyards and found a shadetree, where she sat for several hours.  
  
When she decided to continue looking for the Piestuffer's Stone, she found herself wandering amongst the people of the village. "Welcome to Home," they would call, and it was not until Lara saw a sign reading "Home's Best Bakery" that she realized this city was literally called Home. She wondered why.  
  
Finally there was a place where no one else had dared to go--behind the gold fence. So Lara went there to escape the nagging townspeople, and it was by accident that she found the location of the Stone. There was a locked door on the side of a building, and next to it stood a tourist-guide plaque. It read:  
  
"HERE LIES THE LEGENDARY PIESTUFFER'S STONE, A LEGENDARY ARTIFACT THAT IS SOUGHT ONLY BY THE MOST VORACIOUSLY MALNUTRITIONED. IT WAS CREATED IN 200 A.D. BY A YOUNG ROMAN (NOW HOMAN) BOY WHO LEFT A PIE INSIDE OF A MICROWAVE FOR FIVE CONSECUTIVE YEARS. IT IS NOT CERTAIN WHY EXACTLY THIS STONE IS SO LEGENDARY, BUT I'M NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK NEGATIVELY, LEST I MISS OUT ON MY PAYCHECK. BESIDES, IT MUST BE GREAT IF SO MANY PEOPLE COME TO SEE IT, RIGHT? ANYWAYS, THE FUNNY THING IS THAT MOST PEOPLE COME HERE NOT KNOWING THAT THE PIESTUFFER'S STONE IS BEHIND A LOCKED DOOR THAT CAN NEVER, EVER BE OPENED. HAHA. SUCKERS."  
  
Lara looked around, suddenly hearing the sound of a dying grouse.  
  
"Birds, I wouldn't wonder," she said quietly to herself. "BIG birds. Like on Sesame Street. Oh, let's all go to SESAME STREEEEEEET!" And she skipped merrily along the next alleyway.  
  
Up on a nearby rooftop, Pierre was dragging Larson back up onto the solid shingles after a particularly dangerous slip. "Sacrebleu!" Pierre cried, being of French decent. "Croft was right! You are a gorilla, not a baboon!" He was struggling to pull the three-hundred-pound man to safety, but was failing miserably. Finally, when Larson decided he would rather not be a splatter on the elegant brick road, he heaved himself back up onto the roof.  
  
Upon regaining his footing, Larson began to shoot at the alleyway that Lara had disappeared into, hoping the tiny bullets would somehow break through the stone and locate her.  
  
"DIAPER!" Pierre cried, smacking Larson with the now-trademark pet food bowl. "What are you doing, trying to kill her?!"  
  
"Duh, boss. What else would I be doing when I shoot a gun at her?"  
  
"That's not what I meant, gorilla! We cannot kill her!" Pierre stormed, smacking the gun with the now-trademark pet food bowl.  
  
"Why not?" Larson demanded.  
  
"Well," Pierre stuttered. "I--I-- well, the origamis were very nice. . . But we need that woman to collect the rest of the Stones for us. You know, the ones that are used to open that unopenable door that leads to the Piestuffer's Stone. How could you overlook that crucial bit of detail?!"  
  
"I'll let you know, after I figure out why you don't know what happens when you shoot people," Larson smirked.  
  
Wow, he got really technical all of a sudden, didn't he?  
  
"You WERE kicked in the head by a horse, oui?" Pierre said maliciously, playing on his partner-in-crime's western accent. "So the brain doesn't work correctly?"  
  
"No," Larson said, beaming proudly. "It was a cow."  
  
Pierre smacked himself in the forehead and shook his head in dismissal. "Nevermind," was his hasty reply. "Now, let's get off this roof. And. . . I will buy you a milkshake."  
  
"I don't like milkshakes," Larson whined. "I want a Mc Flurry!"  
  
"Fine, fine!" Pierre screamed frustratedly. "Just quit being so technical!!!11one"  
  
***  
  
Even though Lara stayed out searching for the rest of the Stones for two days, the sky never grew dark and the Earth never rotated around the sun properly. But this was of no concern to her, for she had already found three Stones: the Plastic Stone, the Shredded Wood Stone, and the Tapeworm Stone. Now that she had all four, she headed to the tourist-guide plaque.  
  
At first she thought maybe there were some cleverly-hidden slots in which to place the Stones, so that the door would open. But this seemed insane, so she used a more logical technique. She threw the Stones at the door and demand that it open, or she wouldn't be its friend anymore.  
  
As the door opened, Pierre and Larson came out of nowhere and pointed their guns at her.  
  
"To protect the world from devastation--!" Pierre began, but cut himself off. "Oops. I guess having more than one show to do is more complicated than I thought. Ahem. The Stones, Miss Croft?"  
  
"To unite all people within our nation-- OW!" Larson yelped as Pierre smacked him with the pet food bowl once more. "The OTHER script," Pierre whispered. Lara stared at them like they were both nutcases, and continued throwing rocks at the door, even though it was open.  
  
"Hand over the Stones, Miss Croft!" Pierre roared. "Or--oh! The door's open!" And he ran inside, dragging Larson behind him. Lara did not notice until the sun had finally decided to go down, whereupon she followed and found herself where no human had been before. Literally. 


	3. Trashy Underground Markets

TOMB RAIDER: CHRONICLES - The Absurd Truth  
  
storyline discovered by Triangular Circle  
  
Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me! The plot really happened! Believe me. . . please? .;  
  
chapter three - trashy underground markets  
  
Lara did not have an opportunity to see where Pierre and Larson had disappeared to, for she was much too busy flailing her arms like a maniac as she slid down the smooth limestone of the conveniently-placed incline. When she had at last reached the bottom and had a chance to stand properly, she clutched her head and looked around. Everywhere, every which way she turned her dizzy eyes, she saw gladiator dudes buying fruit or flour, bartering for goods, or raising a general chitchat.  
  
"Welcome to Home's finest market, the TUMs," greeted a friendly gladiator. "TUMs stands for Trashy Underground Markets, but a lot of mean people like to link us with Tums (the medicine). I'm Glad Bag the Trash Bag Gladiator!" And he ran off in a flurry of Glad (TM) garbage bags. Lara blinked once. Then twice. Then walked on through the TUMs, wondering what bizarre stuff might pop out at her next.  
  
Out of nowhere came a half-eaten Pop-Tart, for starters. Then there was a camel with a headcold and a banana who was all peel and no meat. The best attraction of them all, however, was a mousepad with built in windsheild- wipers. Lara was highly fascinated by this artifact, despite its uselessness.  
  
The heart of the TUMs was not crowded in the least. Not crowded with gladiators, at least. For at the centre of the market was the decomposing trash heap; the sacred icon of the TUMs, from which it had taken its name.  
  
Lara made her way past this pile and nearly slipped to her doom as she stepped onto yet another conveniently placed incline. As she pulled herself back up, she found herself face-to-face with a disembodied head effigy. It resembled the gladiators, save that it had glowing green eyes and was a hundred thousand times larger! It hovered before her and cried. . .  
  
"I need glasses! Lord help meee!"  
  
Lara stepped forward and tried to make her presence known. "Hello," she began. "Is there anything I may be able to help you with?"  
  
The effigy just looked down at her and scoffed. "Traitor! You're another one of those cool little human thingys that can see just fine without glasses, aren't you?"  
  
Lara nodded. "Though sometimes I need my sunglasses to see when it's really bright outsi--"  
  
"Ohhhhh!" the effigy yelled, "This headache! It feels like there's fire in my eye sockets! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!!" And suddenly, a stream of flame shot from its eyeball and directly towards Lara. Lara slipped on another conveniently placed incline, and accidentally missed the fire, but the effigy had suddenly become a raging pyromaniac and began to laugh and shoot flames at her.  
  
Lara got out a water gun and tried to douse the flames as they came speeding toward her, but they evaporated the water and clung onto her furiously. Lara screamed and let go of the ledge, but landed in a pool of water, where she was attacked by a half-great-white-shark, half-crocodile, half-poodle, half-jellyfish.  
  
She was weary and charred when she came to a nice open place where she could pull herself to dry land (well, partially dry). The Piestuffer's Stone was still nowhere to be seen. She was no longer underground, either. The sun shone brightly upon the brick road and cooked the air to boiling temperatures, which irked Lara's burnt exterior. She trudged uselessy into a nearby building, and was not expecting to run into the gorilla.  
  
"I know you got the Pieshover-or-whatnot Stone, Lara!" Larson bellowed. "Toss it over or feel my wrath!"  
  
"Really," Lara gasped exhaustedly. "I don't have it. But I do have this old peice of crumbling cake from last year's Fourth of July. . ."  
  
"OH! Gimme!" Larson whinnied, dropping his weapon and jumping up and down impatiently. Lara smirked.  
  
"It's mine."  
  
The gorilla-of-a-man stopped being hyper and picked up the gun he had momentarily forgotten about, pointing it at her. He pulled the trigger. Lara dodged and threw the cake at him. It missed his face and landed splat on the ground, and he slid on it and busted his head on the floor.  
  
Suddenly the effigy appeared behind him, smiling like a sweet old grandma. "Larson," Lara cried. "Behind you!"  
  
"My rear end might be as big as a baboon's, but I ain't gonna FALL for that again!" he chortled. "Get it? FALL? Like I fell on the cake? Hee hee hee!"  
  
"GIVE ME GLASSES!" screamed the effigy, and the fire came racing towards the two puny mortals, who were both caught on fire. They wriggled like dying fish, and finally Lara managed to douse them both with the water gun. The effigy had a big tantrum, smashed Larson to his death against the wall, and disappeared disgruntledly. Lara puffed a sigh of relief and headed onward for the Stone.  
  
She slipped yet again on another conveniently placed incline, grabbed the ledge, and looked up to see Pierre standing over her. "Wow, Zip was right," Pierre gasped. "You DO hang by your cuticles in armpit backwater countries."  
  
"Thanks," Lara muttered. "Would you like to stop for tea as well?"  
  
Pierre looked at her bizarrely and pointed his automatics at her. "Nope. But I'd like it if you handed over the Piestuffer's Stone. Else you might find yourself in that deep pit which you are so carelessly hanging over."  
  
"How about you pull me up, I give you the Stone, and we live happily ever after in Cinderella's castle with our pet tapeworm?" Lara offered. "'Cause I definitely have the Stone."  
  
Pierre thought for a moment. "We all live happily ever after? Can we have origamis?"  
  
"Sure," Lara piped up. "But, yanno. . . I'm sorta losing my grip on this ledge. Can you just pull me up now?"  
  
"You must promise," Pierre replied, "That you will not lie a finger on me-- or my lovely leather jacket--once I pull you to safety. Is that clear?"  
  
Lara nodded, and he grabbed her arm and flung her from the pit. "Now give me the pie, Miss Croft!"  
  
Lara smacked a very fresh, undercooked pie in his face, shoved him off the cliff, and ran off giggling. As she made her way through, she found the TUMs exit and a sign that read:  
  
"WOW. YOU ACTUALLY MADE IT THIS FAR? I'D THOUGHT FOR SURE THAT OUR LARSON AND PIERRE ROBOTS WOULD GET YOU BY NOW. OH WELL. PREPARE TO SEE THE PIESTUFFER'S STONE!" 


	4. Crumblingcheeseon

TOMB RAIDER: CHRONICLES - The Absurd Truth  
  
storyline discovered by Triangular Circle  
  
Disclaimer: I did not conceive this plot, nor did I make up any of the characters, etc. Seriously. It's all ver much nonfiction.  
  
chapter four - crumblingcheeseon  
  
Lara would have pretty much guessed that there would be a conveniently placed incline waiting for her, had she been sane. But, being mentally unstable (and we love her for it), she had hoped there would be lime Jell- O. There was not any. Aww.  
  
She slid down the incline, and almost yelped with joy when she found herself lying in a pile of squishy something. . .not quite Jell-O, but. . .  
  
"CHEESE!" she cried. "Cheese is very nice. Better than origamis." She began to eat some, but a gladiator ran out and slapped her.  
  
"Darest thou eat the construction materials of the Great Crumblingcheeseon?!"  
  
"It's CHEESE," Lara said, annoyedly. "You EAT cheese. You don't 'construction materials' with it." She began to eat some more, her tastebuds deciphering that it was parmesan, but the gladiator picked her up by her backpack and pointed at the wall.  
  
"Do you not see that of which this venue is built?" he demanded rather than asked. "Thy hunger or pleasure, whichever it may be, shall prove our suffocation if you act out the mouse and consume the cheese!"  
  
Lara stared at him and began to scream for help. She had no idea that the gladiator had said a fancy version of, "The building is made of cheese! If you eat the cheese, the whole place will cave in, silly girl!"  
  
"Thouest obviously are having much trouble in hearing my tongue. I shall place you before my ruler, who speaks your strange language with great elaborance." And the gladiator dragged her off to see the emperor.  
  
The emperor was not. In fact, he had never been. It was the gladiator's primitive imagination that had created this concept of "emperor", so Lara had a chance to escape while the gladiator stared in horror at an empty throne (the throne being a rundown, oversized banjo).  
  
Lara went along her way, stuffing her backpack with cheese, and stopped dead in her tracks when something shiny caught her eye. She peered around and finally saw an aluminum can lying half-buried in some cheese that had become shredded.  
  
Now, most people would see a can and either ignore it or kick it. Kick-the- can is quite the national sport. But Lara looked at the can and saw an object of utter perfection; brilliance. And it was wonderfully rusting, besides. Kneeling down on all-fours, she picked the can from its cheesy prison and looked at it admiringly.  
  
"I should start a collection of used, abandoned, and lonely cans," she said aloud. She searched for a label, found not any, and placed the can in her backpack. "How I love cans."  
  
***  
  
"We have much reason to believe that there is a cheese-crazed maniac on the loose within the Crumblingcheeseon," said Glad Bag the Trash Bag Gladiator. "This maniac was also spotted rescuing an unidentifiable aluminum can not long ago."  
  
"Send in the Swiss Lions," called another gladiator, "and lure the cheese maniac to a Cheese Deprivation Management class."  
  
Glad Bag went in search of Ms. Croft and found her opening the vault that contained the Piestuffer's Stone (she had no idea what was inside, and was hoping to find some cans).  
  
"Get yer grubby piestealin' hands outa thurr!" cried Glad Bag in another flurry of Glad (TM) trash bags. He hurled himself forward and grabbed ahold of her meat-legs, whereupon he dragged her to the edge of the building. Lara stared out from the window.  
  
"This looks just like the Coloseum," she mused, "Except made of cheese."  
  
"The outside world thinks it's called the Coloseum, and that it's made of stone," Glad Bag replied. "We had to keep the Crumblingcheeseon a secret, or else Wisconsin and Switzerland would have taken over by now." He stared into space as if remembering fond pasttimes, and Lara escaped his clutches. She ran back to the vault, reached inside, and--without knowing what it was- -pulled out the Piestuffer's Stone.  
  
Suddenly everything was chaos; Glad Bag bellowed, several hundred other gladiators burst from a nearby doorway, a pack of Swiss Lions jumped in from lofty positions on the window sills, and a glass of water fell over. Before she could do anything, Lara had to refuel her depleting energy level. With nothing better at hand, she shoved the Piestuffer's Stone into her mouth and consumed it in one bite.  
  
Now endowed with Ubercool Superhero Strengths and Weaknesses (U.S.S.a.W.), she pushed the gladiators, Swiss Lions, and glass of water aside easily and sped home. Home to Surrey, that is. Her adventure in Home, Italy, was over. The memories faded and we once again see ourselves in the Croft Estate with Father Patrick and Jeevo. 


	5. FACE

TOMB RAIDER: CHRONICLES -The Absurd Truth  
  
storyline discovered by Triangular Circle  
  
Disclaimer: It's reaaal! Real, I tell you--! Oh, pudding! ^^ ::eats pudding::  
  
chapter five - face  
  
Father Patrick looked into the fireplace of the study and sighed.  
  
"Have I ever told either of you doozers about Lara's adventure on the stricken Alaskanmalamute ship?" asked Baldy, coming in from the front hall. "I'm finished painting graffiti on the hall walls, and would be happy to tell you the story, since I have nothing better to do. Oops. Wasn't supposed to say that. . ."  
  
"Pray tell," Jeevo encouraged.  
  
"Well," Baldy began, "Our dear Miss Croft simply does not know when to give up, does she? After all, that's why she's dead. Also proving this point is the time when she went after the Skewer of Coincidence. Alas, it was no coincidence that the Skewer was at the bottom of the ocean on an abandoned Y-boat. There was quite a storyline imbedded within, including the mysterious owners of the boat: a secret organization called Y-CAN. There is absolutely nothing known about them, so I digress. Anyways, I was with Lara when she had decided to go after this Skewer. . ."  
  
***  
  
"These binoculars are a ripoff," Lara growled at Baldy, looking through them and smiting them occasionally to let them know how bad they were being.  
  
"Hey, I got 'em at the Dollar Store, what do you expect?!" was Baldy's far- from-calm answer. "Do you see any Mafia down there?"  
  
Lara continued straining her eyes with the ripoff mini-telescope. "Not yet," she said. "But there's a really cool spider in that tree."  
  
"Spiders went extinct here in Russia five billion years ago," Baldy snorted. "You must be looking at a crab. They're very plentiful in these parts. In fact, I got attacked by a giant monster crab when I was fishing on Lake Bakail. . ."  
  
"Hold on," Lara whispered hoarsely. "Some freaks just arrived at the base down there! They're--"  
  
"The 'base' is called the FACE," Baldy interrupted. "I believe 'FACE' stands for 'Freakish Anti-airconditioning Can-haters Entrance'. It's the building that serves as the headquarters for an organization also called FACE, which also stands for 'Freakish Anti-can Clowns Et cetera'. The organization FACE is on a quest to destroy all cans in the world and force everyone to drink from toddler cups. You know, the kinds with lids and the little spouts on the top."  
  
"Sounds dangerous," Lara said grimly. "The freaks just arrived in a vehicle that resembles a giant toddler cup." She looked through the binoculars again, but became so frustrated with them that she threw them down in the snow and stomped on them. "I'm going now."  
  
"Hold on!" Baldy cried. "You can't just GO down there! What if they smell you?!"  
  
"Don't worry, Baldy," was Lara's answer. "I can reach the cookie jar by myself now." And then she was off, running down the hillside and toward the FACE, putting on deoderant.  
  
***  
  
Lara slid down the ventilation shaft, already sweating in her grey long underwear pajamas (that was the best she could come up with for a camouflaged uniform thingy). FACE obviously was anti-air conditioning, because the ventilation shaft was as still as a dead fly.  
  
She fell down some stairs, came to an open area, and peered into what looked like a giant warehouse. There was a giant claw on the ceiling, and it was being used to pick up giant toddler cups, loading them onto train carts that were disappearing into dark tunnels. Lara sneaked into another hallway, pressed herself up agaisnt a door to avoid the security worker walking past, and fell over through the doorway as it opened against her weight.  
  
It led to an outdoor balcony, which overlooked a wharf. Parked in this wharf was a large submarine, painted bright toddler-cup-yellow with the words 'Welcome Aboard the Alaskanmalamute Ship'. Below the balcony stood two Russian men, talking. Lara listened closely to the two.  
  
"Your little FACE workers are lazy and inconsiderate," spoke the larger of the two men. "My Mafia dudes could load up this submarine twice as fast!"  
  
"I apologize, Sergei," said the other, who looked offended. "But FACE is rather troubled at the moment, having been ransacked and tied to a flagpole- -"  
  
"Relax, YaroPez," Sergei said, smacking him in the back of the head. "There are two bombs--I mean, two SACKS OF PEZ CANDY inside the submarine, waiting for you. . ."  
  
"Really? Pez?" piped up YaroPez. "Hee hee, thanks. . ."  
  
The two men walked toward the submarine and watched a sunburned guy loading giant boxes of stuff onto the vessel. Lara hopped down once they had gone into the sub, and followed after them.  
  
She found that she had to have a special object to get in--a toddler cup with a computer chip in it. So she ran back into the building and made her way to a control room where two security guards were sitting around, guarding a stash of the toddler cups. She listened to them talking.  
  
"I really, really wish I woulda had one of these toddler cups when I was a toddler," said Guard A (named such because his mother had really bad taste).  
  
"I had one," said Guard B. "I was the unluckiest thing in the world."  
  
Guard A stared at him and frowned. "I thought we were all supposed to love them?" he asked. "Else YaroPez wouldn't have hired us."  
  
"Oh, right! Did I say I was UNlucky? I meant LUCKY. . . heh. . ."  
  
Lara suspected that there was something fishy going on, but dismissed it. She waited until the two guards had looked away, and snuck into the room to snatch one of the toddler cups. Just as she got ahold of one, a guard turned around and looked at her. She froze, but all he did was smile and look away. Lara noticed a toddler cup full of beer on his desk, giggled at his drunkenness, and leaped away to the submarine.  
  
She used the cup to gain access into the sub, fought off some rabid sunburned guys with really yellow hair, and sat down in the hold along with the giant toddler cups, hoping the Alaskanmalamute Ship would take off soon; the Skewer of Coincidence wasn't going to wait forever. . . 


	6. Sergei's Absurd Secret

TOMB RAIDER: CHRONICLES - The Absurd Truth  
  
storyline discovered by Triangular Circle  
  
Disclaimer: I'm not gonna say it again! Go look at the previous chapter if you want a disclaimer! x.x  
  
chapter six - sergei's absurd secret  
  
"AHAH! A feeltheh can-loving Y-CAN spy among theh blessed drink contyeners of the young," shouted YaroPez unneccessarily loud as he and two gunmen burst into the hold. Lara stood and put her hands up submissively as the two gunmen came toward her.  
  
"You have no idea what Y-CAN is, do you admiral?" she poked.  
  
"Old senile ledde," YaroPez insisted. "Who yeh are and what yeh know is of very leetle concern to meeh." He suddenly had a VERY Russian accent, as opposed to the slightly Russian accent that he had adopted when conversing with Sergei. "Eef I was cyaptain of thees sheep, I might leesen to you. But unfyortunateleh, the poseetion I find mysyelf een DOESN'T ALLOW ME THAT PRIFELAGE! IYAM UNDER THEH MERCY OF A RAGING MAFIA PSYCHO, YOU HEAR MEH?! Now get in the trash bin."  
  
Lara obediently stepped out of the hold and down into the waste receptacle at gunpoint, and the gunmen locked the bin opening shut.  
  
"Whatever yeh do," Lara heard YaroPez telling the gunmen, "do NOT open thees door! Understyend?"  
  
After the footsteps of the crazed admiral had died away and recieved their funerals, Lara looked around for a way out. There was a tiny lady with suction cups for feet inside the trash bin with her. The tiny lady had ice- blue skin and dark orange hair that resembled a clown wig. She was staring at Lara, holding a peice of lint with the two suction cup hands.  
  
"It's my lint!" she cried in a yodely voice. "Mine, all miiine!" And with that she buried into the garbage and took a nap huggling her piece of lint. At once, Lara knew where she had seen the lint lady...  
  
"You're from Jay Jay the Jet Plane!" Lara screamed, digging into the trash after her.  
  
"No, you trashbin invader!" cried the lint lady. "I was subjected to genetic testing in the laboratory of an evil gerbil! Don't you know anyth-- HEY! QUIT TOUCHIN' MAH LINT!!!"  
  
Lara was suddenly attacked with terrible ferocity as the lint lady clung to her face, suction cup feet sucking the circulation from Lara's face and giving her big blue spots on her forehead and cheeks. "MADWOMAN," Lara cried, prying the lint lady from her face and suddenly (and unintentionally) falling down a hole. The hole led down to the submarine's ventilation ducts. "Whomever built this ship was a madman," Lara said to no one in particular. "Who puts air conditioning ducts belowdecks?!"  
  
"I do," came the menacing reply. Sergei was sitting down in a deep pit in the submarine's interior, chewing some live wires.  
  
"Stop trying in vain to consume us," cried the live wires, but Sergei ignored them and continued to chew. His hair was standing on end from the electric volts that were entering his saliva.  
  
"What on Earth are you doing?!" Lara exclaimed, hardly believing what was strewn before her eyes.  
  
"Shhh," Sergei pleaded with a tiny whimper. "Please do not tell YaroPez! He would kill meh!" He chewed the wires some more, causing them to shriek in agony.  
  
"YaroPez locked me in a trash bin with a vile little blue woman who has deadly feet," Lara said firmly, hoping to move this adventure along a bit. "Now I need to find the Skewer of Coincidence, and I have no idea how to get to it."  
  
"I'll help you out," Sergei said between convulsions from the electricity. "But you must agree to kill YaroPez for me."  
  
"I wouldn't half mind that," Lara said, quite amused. "He needs to die for throwing me in with that lint-loving maniac. But... why exactly do you want me to kill him?"  
  
"He's the one who posesses the most powerful battery on the sub," Sergei explained. "I need--and I mean, NEED--that battery. If only I could sink my electrically aching teeth into it..." He began to drool, and the live wires became even more frantic. At last Lara nodded in agreement.  
  
"Where is YaroPez?" she asked, hoping he was nearby.  
  
"I have no idea," Sergei admitted. "But he has a pet flying camel that follows him around, leaving droppings everywhere it goes. Find a trail of camel dung, and you'll likely find YaroPez." He nodded with finality.  
  
"Thanks," Lara said with a delirious smile. "Have fun with your wires whilst I'm gone." And she proceeded to climb down into the depest reaches of the sub. 


	7. Sergei VS Diving Suit

TOMB RAIDER: CHRONICLES - The Absurd Truth  
  
storyline discovered by Triangular Circle  
  
Disclaimer: Lalala. . . I do not own this. . .  
  
chapter seven - sergei v.s. diving suit  
  
Making her way down a hall, Lara came across several mafioso filths. Each one was tatooed with some sort of strange insignia on his forehead that was a can in a circle with a line crossing through it. The Anti-can symbol. Blasphemous, indeed.  
  
Strangely, none of the mafia saw her. Perhaps it was her blinding good looks, or maybe it was because the nerves leading through their foreheads and to their eyes had been damaged in the tatooing process. Probably the latter.  
  
As she crossed a room and went back inside some ventilation shafts, she began to find random objects; a crowbar, a car muffler, a slinky, and a copy of the book 'Mafia Skillz fer Dummies'. Finally she reached the end of the vent and looked down through an opening. She saw down into a kitchen, in which a chef was preparing something which smelled like marshmallow stew. With extra limes. His back was facing her, so she wagered she could probably sneak down into the room without him noticing. . .  
  
With a great clattering and manic laughing, Lara toppled down into the kitchen. The chef did not hear all of the commotion, however. In his years of being chef for various mafioso organizations, his ears had been rendered useless by the screams of "Gimme more food or ELSE!" that were uttered during dinnertime (and breakfast and lunch, for that matter). After she had stood, Lara soundlessly crept behind the chef. With one swift movement, she whacked him upside the head and killed him. . . with the slinky.  
  
Suddenly someone else began to open the door that led to the kitchen. Thinking quickly, Lara threw herself on the flaming stove. She could pretend that the chef had been preparing her for dinner. She ingored the sizzling and blistering of the flesh on her back.  
  
"Mmm. Something smells good," a voice said after the person had entered. Another person added, "Hey! Chef's dead!"  
  
"He's probably just unconscious," Person 1 said, quite confident that he was correct.  
  
"Do unconscious people bleed a lot and have chunks of their skulls missin'?"  
  
"Sure, why not? They're a mysterious species, yeah?" Person 1 walked over to the stove and poked Lara. "Hey! I think Chef finally got my point when I told him I was a cannibal!"  
  
"Lucky you," Person 2 answered. "He never did give me the crayons I wanted."  
  
Lara's back began to explode with heat, and her hair was smelling bad. Finally she was unnable to take it anymore. She leaped off of the stove and threw herself in a sink, which was full of chocolate pudding. The two mafia men did not think this odd.  
  
"Cool. She's one of those self-maintenance dishes," said Person 2. "I wonder if she adds barbeque sauce on herself too?"  
  
The two men walked out, perhaps leaving Lara for a midnight snack. They locked the door upon their exit.  
  
***  
  
For one entire night, Lara gnawed at the door, walked around, meowed, and sifted through mafia diaries that she had found in a nearby janitor's closet. She found out many important details from these diaries, and some of them were just plain hilarious. One entry, belonging to the diariy of a man named Donny, read:  
  
"Frebruary 0, Wendnensday, 1884  
  
Dear Forsaken Cardboard Flap that I Call Diary,  
  
Susie wouldnt quit pulling my pigtails. Life sucks. I need to commit suicide. I can't take this anymore. She's so. . . carefree. I cannot live like this. Not anymore. I was fine with her telling me I was going to spend my spirit life in eternal torment. But this? This is too much. Goodbye.  
  
Love (and farewell), Donny T. R."  
  
Anywho, Lara finally got the door open and slithered into the feeding area. Several men in white lab coats were passing food to mafia men in cages, and then recording the mafia behaviour with clipboards and pens. Amongst the haybales and toddler cups, she spotted a pile of droppings; perhaps camel droppings. She followed the trail and found herself at the door of YaroPez's office.  
  
YaroPez soon came out, a floating camel trailing behind him. When they had gone from sight, Lara snuck into his office and began to search for the battery that Sergei was in such desperate need of. While she searched, she wondered how and when she would kill YaroPez.  
  
She located the battery in a desk, along with a scrap of paper that read:  
  
"For those of you who may be stealing this battery while the Alaskanmalamute ship is underwater: It is vital to your own survival that you use it to activate the diving suit located in the ship's diving area. If you use it for any other purpose, the ship will automatically explode."  
  
Suddenly the situation became increasingly more complicated.  
  
***  
  
"I'm sorry, Sergei," Lara said, having returned to his place in the air ducts. "I MUST use this battery to activate a diving suit. I need that Skewer."  
  
"But. . . but I cannot live my life knowing I missed out on chewing the most delicious battery in all the world," cried Sergei. "How, oh how, could you even CONSIDER doing such a thing to me?!"  
  
"Um. . . you do look rather forsaken. I guess I'll have to let you use it. AFTER I use it for the diving suit," Lara affirmed.  
  
"Thank you for at least compromising," was Sergei's grateful reply. "As for YaroPez. . . well, let's just say he won't be here when you return from your Skewer hunt." He smiled an electric grin of malice.  
  
Lara nodded and ran off to the diving area. 


	8. Lung Failure and Skewer Utilization

TOMB RAIDER: CHRONICLES - The Absurd Truth  
  
storyline discovered by Triangular Circle  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The toilet overflowed and destroyed all my possessions.  
  
chapter seven - lung failure and skewer utilization  
  
At once Lara knew there was something wrong. The moment she, in the diving suit, plunged down into the water, her lungs collapsed and kept collapsing in on themselves, creating two black holes. Frantically she struggled to doggypaddle her way around, looking for YaroPez's henchmen. She'd manipulate them into finding the Skewer for her.  
  
She was completely blind, her eyes having turned to X's. Somewhere, faintly, she could hear two kids laughing and playing the song "Hungarian Dances". She ignored it and kept swimming, evetually reaching a small sub pod. Another was coming out of a cave.  
  
Someone stuck his head out of the sub pod, yelling "It's not here! Retreat!"  
  
Of course, Lara couldn't hear him, so she stealthily paddled into the cave. She was met by a wall of styrofoam, which she chewed through. In a small crevice filled with leeches, she found the Skewer. The leeches awoke.  
  
"She hasss the Ssskewerrr," one hissed, latching onto the diving suit. Another broke through the glass in her helmet thingo and attatched itself onto her chin. Waving about wildly, she scrabbled her hands around in a pile of styrofoam to find the Skewer, which she had dropped. At last she had it and she began to swim blindly around to find her way out.  
  
Meanwhile, the leeches had made their way to her eyes, and were clinging to them furiously. They sucked the blindness out of her optical nerves and eventually fell off. By this time, Lara was quite utterly lost in the middle of the ocean.  
  
Her (nonexistent) lungs ached, and her eyeballs ached, she was hungry, and there was an old man in a bikini following her around. She did not believe things could get any worse.  
  
And. . . they didn't. Think about it. You really CAN'T get worse than that.  
  
But, by the time she was on the verge of starving, the old man was dead and she could cannibalize. Her eyeache was gone, and she realized that she wasn't in the ocean at all. She could see YaroPez looking at her from behind a pane of glass. She was in an aquarium.  
  
"You've fallen eento mahee trap, haff yoo not?"  
  
"Hey! I see some pez over there," Lara said, pointing over towards a diving- hole in the floor.  
  
"Reeleh?! Wherrre?!"  
  
A splash was heard and YaroPez was not to be seen. Sergei came running into the room, pulled Lara from the aquarium, and latched the diving-hole closed. Unfortunately, an immense amount of water had flooded the ship while the hole had been open. Wires had been ripped loose from control panels, sending a deadly electric wave through most of the submarine. Several men died in that split second.  
  
"THIS IS PARADISE!" Sergei cried, plunging himself into the live water. Lara watched in horror as the overweight man caused a tsunami to rise and pummel out one of the windows. More water rushed in.  
  
"AAAH! Sergei you idiot!" she screamed. She ripped the giagantic battery from her diving suit and shoved it in his mouth, as if it would pacify him. She then swam as fast as she could, being in need of air now that the leeches had sucked the death from her.  
  
Making her way down a dark hallway, she found herself wondering what had become of YaroPez.  
  
'He was a brave man,' she thought. 'Well, not really.'  
  
At last she reached the only remaining air pocket. Sergei had swam after her, and surfaced at her side.  
  
"What d'you think you're doing?!" Lara screeched. "I'm not going to let you take up all the air!" She slammed him back underwater and struggled to hold him there, but he was too musclebound. He surfaced again and spit the battery out into her head. It hit her square in the right temple and knocked her unconscious.  
  
***  
  
"Lara! Wake up! Quit being a useless lardbag!"  
  
She felt a brisk slap across her face and woke to see Baldy standing over her. They were on a snowy beach with a frozen ocean.  
  
"Wow, you look like you turned into a black hole," he said, repulsed. "So, do you have the Skewer?"  
  
"Yes," Lara said. "And I picked up a Happy Meal while I was at it." She attempted to throw a soggy chunk of hamburger up in the air and catch it in her mouth, but it landed in her left nostril. She spent a good few minutes rolling around in the snow blowing her nose like a foghorn.  
  
Baldy just stared at her.  
  
"Er. . . let's go home, shall we Lara?"  
  
"What, do you live at my house now?"  
  
"No, that's not what I--"  
  
"OOOO I got the hamburger out!"  
  
". . ." 


End file.
